Saturday, March 29, 2014

May Treasures in My Closet

It's a hectic week coming up, so I thought I'd better talk about May's forthcoming books before the blog gets too busy with author visits and book chats. April is a busy month.

Miranda Beverly-Whittemore's novel, Bittersweet, is the story of a young woman, a scholarship student at a prestigious college who is welcomed into the home of her college roommate, a world of wealth, friendship, and a place where she feels she belongs. But, when she becomes an insider, she makes a terrible discovery that leads to shocking violence and dark secrets. (Release date is May 13.)

The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames is Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Kai Bird's portrait of the remarkable life and death of one of the most improtant operatives in CIA history, a man who, had he lived, might have helped heal the rift between the West and Arabs. (Release date is May 20.)

Invisible City is Julia Dahl's debut novel, the story of an up-and-coming journalist Rebekah Roberts. Just months after Rebekah was born, her mother, a Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn, abandoned her baby and Christian boyfriend to return to her religion. Now, Rebekah finds herself drawn into her estranged mother's world when she's assigned to cover the murder of a Hasidic Jewish woman in Brooklyn. (Release date is May 6.)

Looking for an espionage thriller? "In a seedy hotel near Ground Zero, a woman lies face down in a pool of acid, teeth missing, fingerprints gone. The room has bee sprayed with a DA-eradicating antiseptic. A legendary, world-class secret agent, later codenamed Pilgrim, quickly realizes that all of the murderer's techniques were pulled directly from his own book - a cult classic of forensic science written under a pen name." Terry Hayes' thriller, I Am Pilgrim, takes readers from Manhattan to Afghanistan, to a chemical warfare factory in Syria, an ancient port in Bosnia, and numerous locations between. (Release date is May 27.)

Peter Heller, bestselling author of The Dog Stars, returns with The Painter, a story of an artist trying to outrun his past. Jim Stegner, a well-known expressionist painter shot a man in a bar years earlier. After serving his time, Jim lives a quiet life, trying to control his dark impulses. But, when he sees a man beating a horse, his rage returns, and he kills the man. Now, he must escape the police, Dell's gang, and try to make sense of his own actions. (Release date is May 6.)

I'm looking forward to Cassandra King's slight book, The Same Sweet Girls' Guide to Life: Advice from a a Failed Southern Belle. It's a gift-sized book with Mother's Day and graduations in mind, a lovely book filled with inspiration and advice, Southern style. It draws inspiration from King's bestselling novel, The Same Sweet Girls. (Release date is May 1.)

Kendel Lynn brings back Elliott Lisbon in the mystery Whack Job. Elli is the director of the Ballantyne Foundation, blending that job with her PI-in-training status by planning parties and performing discreet inquiries for charitable patrons. But the annual Wonderland Tea Party turns everyone mad as a hatter, and Elli is pulled into a shooting, a swindle, and the hunt for a Faberge egg. (Release date is May 13.)

Don't you think an Emmy-winning actress, who spent thirty-two-years on a soap opera would be able to play the role of amateur sleuth? Meet Veronica Walsh in Jeanne Quigley's All Things Murder. After all those years on a soap, Veronica can't land a new part, so she returns to her Adirondack hometown for what she hopes is a short visit. But, it isn't long before she's caught up in the turmoil caused by her neighbor. And, when that powerful businesswoman ends up dead, and Veronica finds her, she's up for the role of her life, sleuth and heroine. (Release date is May 21.)

I don't know about the book itself, but the cover of Ruth Reichl's debut novel really is Delicious! When an iconic food magazine shuts down, Billie Breslin finds the magazine's library, where a hidden room holds the letters of Lulu Swan a twelve-year-old who corresponded with legendary chef James Bead during World War II. Those letters provide Billie with a deeper understanding of history - and the history of food. And, Lulu's courage in the face of loss inspires Billie to come to terms with her own life. (Release date is May 6.)

Linda Rodriguez' half-Cherokee heroine, Skeet Bannion, has her hands full as she juggles murder and trick family ties in Every Hidden Fear. Skeet is still trying to adjust to living with her teenage ward, Brian, when hr Cherokee grandmother moves in. Then, a bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks, now a wealthy developer, comes to town, and stirs up trouble, splitting the town. When he ends up dead, it's his angry son, who just learned who is father is, who is the main suspect. Although Skeet's job is to provide security and investigate on the local college campus, it's hard to resist when Brian asks for help in saving his friend. (Release date is May 6.)

Travel to Victorian London in Will Thomas' Fatal Enquiry. Thomas Llewellyn finally learns everything about private enquiry agent Cyrus Barker. The two detectives have to evade the law in London while the pierce together a plot devised by a man who betrayed Barker once before, almost costing him his life on the battlefield during the Boxer Rebellion. (Release date is May 13.)

Conway Sax is back in Steve Ulfelder's Wolverine Bros. Freight & Storage. He has to track down and rescue Kenny Spoon, a washed-up TV star who has been kidnapped by gangsters. It's a favor for Eudora Spoon, a dear friend and fellow member of the barnburners, the tight-knit maverick AA group whose members Conway has sworn to help. But, when Eudora is murdered on her own estate, Conway, who vows to find her killer, finds himself in danger. (Release date is May 6.)

And, the final treasure of May is a memoir, Delancey by Molly Wizenberg. When Molly Wizenberg married Brandon Pettit, he was a trained composer with a variety of off-beat interests. When he decided to open a pizza restaurant, she was supportive, thinking it would never happen. They ended up building the restaurant, Delancey, together. When it became a success, Molly was forced to admit she hadn't been honest with herself or Brandon. (Release date is May 6.)

I hope you find this collection of books as fascinating as I do. Is there anything that excites you on this list of books?

10 comments:

Rosemary
said...

I like the look of 'Delicious' - as a teenager I read and re-read a book from our library, James Beard's 'Delights & Prejudices', and became absolutely fascinated by his affluent childhood in Portland. The thing I most remember, though, is him saying that you should use TEN eggs for some recipe or other - and if it went wrong, you must simply crack another TEN eggs and start again. My mother - brought up in the war years, when eggs were a scarce commodity - would have had an attack of the vapours at the very thought!

Hi Lesa, I'm reading BITTERSWEET (ARC) and really enjoying it ... love well-written stories about "dark family secrets" ..... The author Miranda Beverly-Whittmore is new to me. Highly recomended! Hope you get and chance to read and review this one.

About Me

I have been a library manager/administrator for over 30 years, in Ohio, Florida, Arizona, and, now, Indiana. Winner of the 2011 Arizona Library Association Outstanding Library Service Award. I am a contributing Book Reviewer for Library Journal, Mystery Readers Journal, and ReadertoReader.com. Author of the "Mystery Fiction" chapter in Genreflecting: A Guide to Popular Reading Interests (7th ed.) Winner of the 2009 and 2010 Spinetingler Awards for Best Reviewer.

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It's an honor to be asked to review books, and I'm grateful to all the publishers, publicists, and authors who send me books. Thank you. Reviews will appear on my blog if I've had a chance to read, and finish, the book. If I do not finish a book, I won't review it, and I will not respond to emails asking when, or if, I'll be reviewing a book.

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